Week One of the 21.5.800 Project – Seven Lessons Learned This time last week I committed to joining Bindu Wiles 21.5.800 project, which involves writing 800 words a day and doing yoga 5 times a week for 21 days. I jumped at the chance. Because when asked what my favourite activities are, yoga and writing are right there in my top three solo activities. Ever. (the third being running). Although yoga and writing are in my top three of things to do, they are also how I make my living. Sometimes it is hard to draw a line between my yoga teaching practice and my own personal practice, between my writing gigs that have deadlines set for me and my own personal writing. So, doing yoga and writing purely for myself was what drew me to the 21.5.800 challenge. I am aware of how fortunate I am to love what I do so much that it is still what I want to do in my spare time. (or that I loved what I did in my spare time so much I created a career out of it.) But as I’ve come to realize, even though I want to do my own yoga practice and creative writing every day, I don’t always do them. Stumbling upon the 21.5.800 challenge was the perfect opportunity to commit to these activities for me, to keep me accountable to myself, my yoga and my personal writing. It’s now a week in, and what have I learned? I’ve come up with my top 7 lessons, one for each day of the week: 1. Regardless of how busy I am or how free my schedule is, situations will arise that I can use as an excuse for not doing the things I should do. 2. I can always find the time to do things if I really want to. 3. My body knows what it needs. If I show up on the mat. And listen. 4. (As a result of lesson #3) All yoga is not equal, yet it is. I need to acknowledge that my yoga practice is still my yoga practice whether I am meditating, saluting the sun, practising conscious breathing, doing vinyasa flow or holding one single posture for 10 minutes. 5. When I show up to write 800 words every day I unearth topics that I’ve been avoiding. 6. When I’m avoiding said topics, I avoid writing! Bindu posted on day 4 about fear and asked people participating in the project to contemplate fear. My first thought was that if I’m avoiding writing, it usually means there is a fear in my life that I’m not facing. And this week, as I wrote about and clarified a personal situation I have been struggling with, it occurred to me that showing up on the page is the first step to cracking my fears in half. And that writing is my way of breaking down my fears until they are small enough to manage with confidence. As a result, my lesson#7 was the biggest lightbulb moment of the project so far: 7. When I write, I can face pretty much any fear. Some of these lessons I knew, but needed to be reminded. Some showed up unexpectedly. All of them have been eye-opening. As we dive into week two of the 21.5.800 challenge, I’m intrigued and excited to see what lessons lie ahead! |
